Achinta's journey from being skilled embroiderer to CWG podium
BIRMINGHAM: Deulpur, till Sunday midnight, was another nondescript village with a population of 12,000 people under Panchla sub-division of Howrah district in West Bengal.
That is how Wikipedia describes the village in about three sentences.
On Monday morning, the page had a sub-section added, 'Notable Personality' and that is Achinta Sheuli.
Achinta had not only lifted 313 kilograms of weight but also lifted his village out of obscurity and invoked interest in people to know more about the 20-year-old, who came from a village, which is famous for Zari work.
The suppleness in his thumb and index finger wasn't something Achinta aimed at developing.
Rather, it was a compulsion as his days would be spent with a needle between the fingers and a brocade to design. That put food on the table.
And that food gave him strength to lift weights.
"Our village is known for Zari work. So we three (him, mother and brother) also started doing embroidery work for contractors. Work would begin at 6.30 am and would continue till the evening," an emotional Achinta recollected while talking to PTI after winning India's third yellow metal at the Commonwealth Games.
His father Jagat was a trolley rickshaw puller and at one time the sole breadwinner of the family of four, living in a chawl.
A fatal heart-attack snatched him from Achinta in 2013, when he was just 11 years old.
"Everything, including the clock stopped for us," he paused as he gathered his thoughts.
"We never expected this and we were not prepared for this. We were then forced to do zari (embroidery) work. My mother (Purnima) also did that," he said.
Achinta was like any other kid, happy-go-lucky, carefree, oblivious to worldly worries like any 10 year old.